"The Nielsen persona intervened
in th[e] process of transformation [from stage to screen]. She used the return
of drama in film in order to create in the cinema what the theatre had missed
out on: to become a place of female self-determination, where gender relations
might be defined. . . . the disruption of the traditional order of gender
and of traditional female role models brought about by industrialization and
urbanisation belatedly generated a social demand, especially among the female
population, aimed at gaining a new self-confidence in gender relations. On
this demand Asta Nielsen was to found her production programme." -- Heide
Schlüpmann

TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU THINK THAT
THIS FILM CHALLENGES TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES?

ASTA
NIELSEN AND FEMINIST FILM CRITICISM

Is Hamlet mocking
and/or seizing the male gaze?

"In
a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between
active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy
on to the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional
exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with
their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can
be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. . . . Traditionally, the woman displayed
has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the
screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium,
with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen." -Laura
Mulvey

"But the important
question remains: when women are in the dominant position, are they in the
masculine position? Can we envisage a female dominant position that would
differ qualitatively from the male form of dominance? Or is there merely the
possibility for both sex genders to occupy the positions we now know as masculine
and feminine?" --E. Ann Kaplan

"Some actresses seem
to transcend their roles as sex-objects, to comment on the very nature of
spectacle and voyeurism. . . . When Katherine Hepburn, in George Cukor's Sylvia
Scarlett (1935), disguises herself as a boy ("Sylvester") in order to
travel with her father, the sum effect is to turn the tables, and make "femininity"
look like the disguise. Indeed, once Sylvia has become a boy, she has a hard
time remembering how to act like a woman." -- Judith Mayne

DO YOU THINK THAT
ASTA NIELSEN'S CROSS-DRESSED HAMLET SUCCESSFULLY TURNS THE TABLES ON GENDER
STEREOTYPES?

Who's zooming
who?

HOW
DOES THIS FILM - VIA THE CAMERA, VIA NIELSEN'S OWN GAZE, ETC. -- DIRECT OUR
GAZE? WHO SEEMS TO CONTROL THE STORY'S NARRATIVE?

THE
ECONOMICS OF THE IMAGE:

In Europe at the time of this film,
Asta Nielsen's image was in high demand. As Ann Thompson tells us, "By 1914,
she was the most popular film star in Germany and was known all over the world.
There were 'Asta' cigarettes, pastries and hair-styles in Germany, and Asta
Nielsen cinemas in San Francisco, Dusseldorf and Nagasaki. Her picture decorated
trenches on both sides during World War I" (216).

HOW DOES IT IMPACT
YOUR READING OF THIS FILM TO KNOW THAT "IN 1920 [NIELSEN] FORMED HER OWN PRODUCTION
COMPANY AND CHOSE TO MAKE HAMLET AS ITS FIRST VENTURE" (THOMPSON 217)?